customs returns of the country; and his reports, corrected by the Department of State upon the authority of the customs returns of this country, Great Britain, and France, and from the Statesman's YearBook as to the trade of Germany, are the basis of the following tables. The indirect trade through France was with Belgium and Switzerland; that through the United States and Great Britain was with unascertained countries.

By the official tariff of Colombia now in force the following are the import duties collectible on the products named, per pound and in United States currency, reckoned from the value of the peso as of July 1, 1891, at 73.6 cents:

Articles.

Potatoes, onions, corn, rice, pease, beans, and all kinds of vetetables and fresh fruits
Flour, including sago, arrowroot, tapioca, corn meal, and all similar products.

Prepared food, such as hams, sweetmeats, confectionery, preserved and dried fruits, etc., and all pickles and condiments not specially distinguished.

Olives in barrels...

* Reduced in the Bureau of American Republics from kilos and pesos.

A detailed statement of the agricultural products of the United States imported into Colombia in 1889, published in the September report of this Department for 1890, showed the value to be $984,115. The aver age rate of duty of that country on imports seems to be about 63.1 per cent ad valorem, although it is only determinable approximately, best by comparing the amount of revenue presumably raised from imports with the value of the imports, upon most of which duties are payable. Taking three-fourths of the revenue to have been raised from imports in 1888, at the apparent rate stated, the above amount of agricultural products purchased from us paid $620,000 in duties, or over 64 per cent, the whole of the productions imported from us paying $3,101,653. At the same time the export duties of Colombia are not less than those of Brazil or Venezuela upon coffee, the principal article of export of the three countries, or 16 per cent ad valorem, which would make the duties collected on exports to us in 1888 $702,921, the whole duties collected on trade with us being $3,804,574 on a total trade of $9,417,138, or over 40 per cent of the amount of that trade. As an offset in our favor we collected duties on $148,890 worth of imports from Colombia, amounting, at the average rate on dutiable articles of 45.13 per cent, to $67,233. We also admitted free of duty the balance of our imports from her, upon which she had already collected an export duty, such balance being $1,244,368, and such remitted duties, at an average rate of 29.50 per cent on all articles free and dutiable, being $1,252,088. Such, substantially, are the trade conditions existing between two Republics whose ports are less than 1,500 miles apart, which lie on the natural trade line, produce little in common, and regularly require each the productions of the other, especially those of the soil.

ECUADOR.

The Republic of Ecuador dates from 1830 as an independent power, although it established its independence from Spain in 1822, in a decisive battle upon the side of Mount Pichincha, fought 10,200 feet above sea level; after which it became a part of the unstable Colombian federation formed under Bolivar, which included also all the north and west portion of South America down to Bolivia. The State derives its name from its situation upon the equator, but as its boundaries upon the north and south, with the United States of Colombia and Peru, are still undetermined, the area can only be given proximately. Orton, in "The Andes and Amazon," 1870, gives it at "about 200,000 square miles," with a seacoast of "1,200 miles." The American Almanac states it, following the planimetric calculation of Hanemann on the basis of Kiepert's map in his Hand Atlas of 1872, at a little over 248,000 square miles. This calculation does not assign to Ecuador the disputed territory along the Marañon, claimed also by Peru. The American Cyclopedia places the area at 252,000 square miles, to which it adds that of the Galápagos Islands, 2,951, making the total 254,951, while the Almanach de Gotha gives the highest estimate of 348,782 square miles. At the other extreme of estimates of this unsurveyed country, the Statesman's Year-book for 1891 and preceding years gives the area at 118,630 square miles, and the Hand Book of the American Republics, of February, 1891, follows this statement. The true area, however, will probably be nearest approximated from the map and information contained in the "Report of the International American Conference relative to an International Railway Line," published in 1890.

Ecuador is bounded on the east and west respectively by Brazil and the Pacific, and these boundaries, at least, shown by the map referred to to be on an average 800 miles apart, are not in dispute. A rectification of the line in dispute with the United States of Colombia could not place it farther south than the equator without taking away from Ecuador its capital, Quito; but that limit may be accepted eastward from Baeza, without loss of much territory on either side. It is understood that Écuador claims on the south down to the Marañon, east of the Andes, as far as Tabatinga, but in the map referred to the boundary marked as in dispute is considerably north of the Marañon. The average distance between these northern and southern limits-the equator and the line given in the map as the boundary most favorable to Peruis 325 miles. This multiplied by the length, 800 miles, gives a mainland area of 260,000 square miles, to which should be added the area

of the Galápagos Islands, 2,951 square miles, making the probable total area, from the best data available, at least 262,951 square miles, an area nearly equal to that of Colorado, Utah, and Nebraska combined. The coast line, according to the map referred to, is about 400 miles long, and has but one important, and two lesser ports, nearly all the foreign commerce of Ecuador passing through the city of Guayaquil, upon the gulf of that name.

POPULATION BY POLITICAL DIVISIONS.

By the last census, 1885, the population of Ecuador, aside from over 150,000 unsubdued Indians, was 1,004,651, distributed among the seventeen provinces in the numbers shown in the following table, which also contains the name of the chief city of each province, the extent being undetermined:

The executive authority in Ecuador is exercised by a President, who is selected by a college of 905 electors chosen by the people, for a term of four years. He is assisted by a vice-president, who is elected in the same manner, and who presides over the ministers constituting a council of state, which is responsible to Congress.

The legislative power is vested in the Congress, consisting of a senate and house of representatives, which meets biennially. Senators are elected for a term of four years, two for each province, one-half retiring every second year, and representatives at the rate of one for each 30,000 inhabitants for two years.

The judiciary consists of a supreme court, the members of which are elected by congress for a term of six years; a court of appeals, and provincial, district, canton, and parish courts, all under congressional jurisdiction.

The Roman Catholic Church is represented in the ministry, its creed is national, and electors must be members of it, and able to read and write.

NATIONAL FINANCES.

The money of Ecuador has the sucre for a unit of values, nominally equal to our dollar, but in effect of the value of only 73.6 cents of our money. The revenue of the country for 1889 is officially stated at

3,110,506 sucres ($2,289,332.42), and the expenditures at 3,075,424 sucres ($2,263,512.06). Of the entire revenue more than half, or $1,823,472.38, was derived from customs duties on imports at the port of Guayaquil. The foreign debt, contracted in England in 1885, amounted in 1890 to $10,932,884.24, which was diminished by concessions, in August of that year, to $3,649,875, bearing interest progressive for a series of years of 43 to 5 per cent. The internal debt in 1890 was, with accrued interest, $3,547,997. The national money in circulation is all of silver, and amounted December 31, 1889, according to the Statesman's Year Book, to about $368,000, besides $780,758 deposited in the two banks at Guayaquil. There are two banks issuing notes for circulation, for which the Government is not responsible, which had a circulation in 1889 of $1,974,778 on a basis of silver deposits equal to one-third of that amount.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Ecuador, like Peru, has a narrow and hot coast region of great fertil ity; a central area from north to south broken by the great double Andean chain and lateral branches, characterized by fertile and salubrious valleys of considerable extent, high table-lands best suited to pasturage, and timber, and snow-clad mountains containing considerable mineral wealth, many of which culminate in volcanoes; and on the east a region nearly four times greater than the others combined, abundantly and regularly watered, equally fertile, abounding in forests of valuable timber and economic plants, and suited when subdued to almost every agricultural use except the production of the smaller cereals. An article in the American Cyclopædia says, very truly:

No country in the world presents a more varied surface than that of Ecuador. About nine-tenths of it is composed of snow-clad mountains, dense forests, and vast llanos or savannas. To the east extend interminable forests and immense plains, intersected by rivers, lagoons, and marshes, and interrupted by mountain ranges stretching from the Andes obliquely to the banks of the Amazon. To the west the country is covered with extensive forests, with less lofty mountains, and cut by rivers of lesser magnitude. The center swells into two cordilleras separated by a valley 300 miles long, with snow-covered peaks ranking among the loftiest of the earth. The valley is remarkable as being, next to the basin of Titicaca, the center of the most ancient native civilization of America. The Andes enter the republic by the mountain knot of Loja, where they separate into two chains parallel to each other, and to the coast, traversing the State in a NNE. direction until the chain again unites in the mountain knot of Pasto, near the northern limit. At two points transverse ridges link the two parallel chains together, dividing the large valley into three smaller ones, named severally, commencing at the south, Cuenca, Alausi and Ambato, and Quito. The elevation of the valleys varies from

8,500 to 14,500 feet, that of Quito having a mean elevation of 9,540 feet. Nowhere in the whole system of the Andes are more colossal mountains than those on either side of the valleys of Quito and Ambato, 2° S. and 0° 15′ N. of the equator. Many of these are volcanoes, a few being extinct and the others in activity.

The country between the Andes and the Pacific is intersected by spurs detached from the western chain, and gradually sinking into low hills as they approach the coast, except the portion adjacent to the Rio de Guayaquil, which is a plain several miles in extent and so low as to be inundated during the flood.